Actors Josh Radnor and Laura Benanti have been cast in the upcoming Broadway revival of musical She Loves Me. The former How I Met Your Mother star and Nashville actress Benanti will take on the lead roles as dueling co-workers who don't realise they have been writing romantic letters to each other as anonymous penpals.
The 1963 musical, which was based on Miklos Laszlo's 1937 play Parfumerie, served as the inspiration for films The Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail.
Radnor, who is currently appearing on the Great White Way in the play Disgraced, previously starred in a special one-night-only gala reading of She Loves Me in 2011, alongside Victor Garber and Jane Krakowski.
Six-time Tony nominee Scott Ellis will helm the Roundabout Theater Company's production, which is set to begin its limited run in the spring of 2016.

It's December, so many lists and awards are coming out to celebrate the best of the best in entertainment for 2014. TIME just released their list of the top 15 most influential fictional characters of this year and some of them may surprise you. Although they give the reason behind each pick, we thought we would give you how we were influenced because they aren't always the same.
15. Hello Kitty
How she influenced others: The cartoon character went viral for being outted as not a cat, but human girl who lives in London with her family. Wuhhhhh?
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How she influenced us: We still buy Hello Kitty everything!
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14. Tracy McConnell on How I Met Your Mother
How she influenced others: Fans went crazy for finally finding out who this mysterious character is. There were headlines everywhere covering the last season and a lot of discussion about the ending.
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How she influenced us: WARNING, SPOILER! She proved to us just how messed up TV can be because this whole time we watch to find this big love story and it ends with her just being a vessel for Ted (Josh Radnor) to have his kids (because we all know Robin (Cobie Smuders) wouldn't do that). Then she conveniently dies so Robin, who is now the aunt of their kids, can step back in his love life. Gross!
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13. Amy Dune from Gone Girl
How she influenced others: This complicated character made waves by creating a discussion about dark, female characters.
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How she influenced us: We didn't read the book, so our minds EXPLODED leaving the theater.
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12. Mr. Poo
How he influenced others: Public deification is a big problem in India so Mr. Poo was created to nip that problem in the bud. Thanks to him, one million people pledged to find a toilet to poo.
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How he influenced us: THIS IS US NEVER HEARING ABOUT THIS BEFORE!
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11. Rust Cohle from True Detective
How he influenced others: After the detective mentioned the book, The King in Yellow, people began buying it like crazy on Amazon.
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How he influenced us: We're guilty, we got the book, and it was the first time in a long time that we've read.
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10. Female Thor
How she influenced others: When Marvel released the news that Thor was being relaunched as a woman it made huge rounds on the internet and started many discussions about women in the comic book world.
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How she influenced us: We couldn't wait. We already needed to cosplay as her!
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9. Annalise from How To Get Away With Murder
How she influenced others: A New York Times TV critic deduced Shonda Rhimes' new character as an "angry black woman." Shonda Rhimes responded to the disgusting accusation.
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How she influenced us: She had us glued to the television every week trying to dissect her great big plan.
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8. Hatsune Miku, a computer-generated Japanese singer
How she influenced others: The computer sensation made it to America thanks to performing at Madison Square Garden on Lady Gaga's tour and then performing on The Late Show With David Letterman.
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How she influenced us: We broke our necks so hard looking at Hatsune perform for the first time. What is HAPPENING?!
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7. Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games franchise.
How she influenced others: She isn't just hot girl kicking butt to some people. In Thailand and Hong Kong this fictional character actually inspired pro-democracy protestors to stand up for their own rights in their countries. Very awesome!
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How she influenced us: So wait...Katniss doesn't fight in Mockingjay? And is a politician now?
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6. Maura Pfefferman from Transparent
How she influenced others: Maura has made headlines for being the first transgender character lead to a TV show.
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How she influenced us: We cheered because we love seeing progress in entertainment!
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5. King Joffrey from Game of Thrones
How he influenced others: TIME gives credit to this character as the reason the hit show has made it to 18.4 million viewers each week. We buy it.
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How he influenced us: When Joffrey finally gets what coming to him, we couldn't help but dance.
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4. Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report
How he influenced others: The satire host stepped on a few toes making a joke about the Washington Redskins leading to a lot of backlash on Twitter. He also made the huge announcement that he's leaving his show to take over The Late Show.
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How he influenced us: Our eyes might have fogged up at the thought of losing Colbert Report.
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3. Star-Lord from Guardians of The Galaxy
How he influenced others: Not only was the movie a big hit, but so was the soundtrack, which made it to the top of Billboard 200.
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How he influenced us: We admittedly became hipsters and had to get the soundtrack on tape.
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2. Kim Kardashian from Kim Kardashian Hollywood
How she influenced others: The reality star made over $200 million off of her mobile game. So basically everyone has been downloading and most likely spending real money to buy things in the game.
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How she influenced us: We might have caved in and downloaded it out of curiosity. We hate ourselves for it.
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1. Elsa from Frozen
How she influenced others: Frozen has been everywhere since it released and Elsa's hit "Let It Go" rightfully earned an Oscar. The fictional character was so good, that it was immediately on Once Upon A Time, which bumped up their ratings.
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How she influenced us: We have a new favorite karaoke jam!
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How did these 15 characters influence you this year? Tell us your answers by tweeting the Twitter handles below!
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CBS
Two And A Half Men star Ashton Kutcher has been named U.S. TV's highest-paid actor for the third year in a row.
The actor earned an estimated $26 million (£15 million) for his work on the hit sitcom over the past 12 months, according to editors at Forbes magazine. Kutcher's Two and a Half Men co-star Jon Cryer follows behind in second place earning $19 million (£11.5 million). The pair is heading into the long-running programme's 12th and final season next month (Sep14).
Cryer is tied in second place with NCIS veteran Mark Harmon, while Neil Patrick Harris comes in at fourth, raking in $18 million (£11 million) to end his eight season run on How I Met Your Mother, which finished earlier this year (14).
Grey's Anatomy hunk Patrick Dempsey and House of Cards star Kevin Spacey tie in the fifth position with $16 million (£9.7 million).
Other actors featured on the countdown include The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki, Harris' co-stars Jason Segel and Josh Radnor, Tim Allen, Charlie Sheen, and newcomer on the list, Mad Men's Jon Hamm.

Former How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor is returning to Broadway. Radnor is set to take the lead in the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, starring alongside Gretchen Mol, Karen Pittman, and Hari Dhillon.
The actor made his Broadway debut more than a decade ago opposite Kathleen Turner in 2002's The Graduate and he will be following in the footsteps of his How I Met Your Mother co-star Neil Patrick Harris, who is currently riding high on the Great White Way in a Tony Award-winning production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Disgraced, about a Muslim-American lawyer and his artist wife who have an explosive conversation about beliefs, race and identity with another couple over dinner, opens at the Lyceum Theatre on 27 September (14).

CBS Broadcasting
Not every show can go out on a good note. Sure, some shows like Breaking Bad come up with a conclusion that feels right and true to most fans. But usually, when a show has been on the air for a while, finding a tidy way to wrap things up can be a chore.
Even if it's been planned out since the beginning, as was the case with the series finale of How I Met Your Mother, it's hard to make people who have invested time in the characters feel like they've said goodbye in a satisfying way. While the fury swells over the HIMYM's controversial ending, it's helpful to distract ourselves with other epic finale fails Ted and his stupid blue French horn are up against.
The Sopranos
It's like the start of a joke… Tony Soprano walks into a diner.
That's how David Chase sets up the finale of his landmark HBO series. The Mafia boss made famous by the late James Gandolfini rifles through a jukebox at his table and picks out Journey's "Don’t Stop Believing." His wife Carmela (Edie Falco) joins him, soon followed by his son A.J. (Robert Iler). The diner is full. A guy in a hat sits at a nearby booth and may have eyed Tony when he was alone. Another guy in a Members Only jacket enters right before A.J. and seems kind of twitchy. Another pair of guys lingers near the counter. Tony's daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) is late because she can't parallel park. The jacket guy walks past the Soprano's table and goes into the bathroom. Meadow, finally out of the car, walks towards the door of the diner. She reaches out to open it, the bell rings above the door and… nothing. Cut to a black screen.
Millions of Americans reached for their remote, sure that their TV sets had just completely screwed them over and were poised to call their cable company... when suddenly the credits started to roll. The shock that the series ended with a cut to black set fans howling and looking for answers. Did we go black because a bullet just went through Tony's head? Did the bell mean something? Were the potential threats in the diner just a part of Tony's normal paranoia? What the heck does any of it mean? Chase has steadfastly refused to provide much in the way of explanation, leaving a large section of the fan base furious over the ambiguity.
Seinfeld
The show about nothing decided to make the end about something. That's a problem. With Larry David back to write the final episode of the show that he created with his friend Jerry Seinfeld, the group is about to have some good fortune. The show-within-a-show created by Jerry and George (Jason Alexander) finds new life and the duo, along with Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Kramer (Michael Richards), are jetting off to Paris to celebrate in a private jet courtesy of NBC. But, some mechanical issues ground them and while they wait, they stand around making jokey comments about a car-jacking that they're witnessing. Next thing you know, we're in a court room with every ancillary character in the history of the show, each with his or her own story of how horrible Jerry and his friends are. The foursome is led to a single jail cell after being convicted under a Good Samaritan law and, essentially, starts having a conversation the same as they would at Monk's or Jerry's apartment.
As the credits role, Jerry, dressed in prison orange, performs a stand-up routine for the other inmates. The finale was bloated, lazy, and worst of all, not funny… with jokes falling flat left and right. Apparently most of the humor was supposed to come from the audience seeing the Soup Nazi or Newman one last time. For a show that had delivered consistent laughs throughout its entire run, not remaining true to the style of humor that had made it a cultural phenomenon was the ultimate sin.
St. Elsewhere
The critically acclaimed '80s medical drama had a very loyal fan base that kept it on the air. It's hard to remember but the Boston-based show was the career launching pad for a number of actors, Denzel Washington and Mark Harmon chief amongst them, and was a major influence on later hospital series like ER and Grey's Anatomy. In the finale, a bearded Howie Mandel leaves after finishing his residency and David Morse's soulful Dr. Morrison collects his young son to depart as well. As the show's moral center Dr. Westphal (Ed Flanders) returns to his office, his autistic son (Chad Allen) stares out the window at the falling snow.
Cut to: Westphal now dressed as a construction worker entering an apartment where his son is on the floor staring at a snow globe. What's inside the globe? A replica of St. Eligius Hospital, or St. Elsewhere, as it's more commonly called. So, the whole show was just something that played out in the mind of an autistic boy? Is that it? Really? The whole "it was all fake" ending worked exactly once with the brilliant final reveal on Newhart, but that's it.
Dexter
The closet serial killer played by Michael C. Hall is getting out of the game. With his girlfriend Hannah (Yvonne Strahovski) and son Harrison (Evan and Luke Kruntchev) in tow, he's going to skip out to Argentina and lead a more peaceful life... then a criminal shoots Dex's sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter). Even though she seems fine, she suddenly lapses into a coma after a massive stroke. Dexter kind of matter-of-factly kills Saxon while he's in police custody, sends Hannah and Harrison off to Buenos Aires, and then takes Deb off life support. He steals her body and dumps it into the sea, before faking his own death. Except when we see Hannah and Harrison way down south, Dexter isn't with them and Hannah is reading a news story about his presumed watery demise.
We hear Dexter in a voice-over explaining how hard it is to be him. So, where is he? Well, why don't we let every fan of the Showtime hit take over from here: "A lumberjack?! He's a f**king lumberjack?! What do you mean he's a f**king lumberjack?!" Before that final scream-inducing reveal — seriously, how many TV sets were broken when remotes went sailing into them immediately after the shot of bearded Dexter? — the episode was pretty lifeless, moving from point A to B to C in a paint-by-numbers kind of way.
Roseanne
Just like with Seinfeld, the ending to Roseanne Barr's long-running sitcom felt like a cheat. Really it was a case where the show probably should've ended a couple of seasons before it actually did. The final season was an unmitigated disaster as the Connors won the lottery and the entire premise of the show changed, becoming a distorted rumination on the meaning of life. In the final episode, we see the cast of the show gathered around the kitchen table eating, laughing, and joking. Then a voice-over from Rosanne tells us that what we've been watching was a figment of her imagination. She's changed things from real life as she's written, including having Dan survive the heart attack that actually killed him two years prior. Worse, she calls into question what parts of the show going back before the heart attack were real (what do you mean David is really Becky's boyfriend?). Considering that the show became a ratings juggernaut with its funny portrayal of the real issues that face lower-middle class Americans, being told that it was just the main character's alternate reality was a slap in the face. And, while it's fine for a finale to be packed with emotion — plenty of fans cried at the end of M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore Show — the final shot of Roseanne sitting alone on her couch was unnecessarily depressing.
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Dissatisfied fans of How I Met Your Mother are campaigning for a new ending after the finale aired in the U.S. on Monday (31Mar14). Despite earning a series-high rating of 12.9 million viewers in America, the final episode of the popular sitcom proved to be polarising for fans as a number of plot twists left viewers stunned by the show's conclusion after nine seasons.
Shortly after the finale aired, devoted fans started a petition on Change.org demanding co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas to re-write and re-shoot the episode, simply stating, "You know it's just wrong."
More than 6,725 fans from around the world had signed the plea as WENN went to press.

Actor Josh Radnor's onscreen children in How I Met Your Mother knew how the hit U.S. series would end nine years ago, after producers revealed all to them at the very start of the show. David Henrie and his TV sister Lyndsy Fonseca have been filming reaction scenes to the relationship tales told by Radnor's character Ted Mosby since 2005, when they were teens, and they continued to make non-speaking appearances in the sitcom until their brief dialogue at the very end of the series, which wrapped for good when its season nine finale aired in America on Monday (31Mar14).
Actress Cobie Smulders, who played Mosby's on/off love interest Robin Scherbatsky, reveals, "(Creators) Carter (Bays) and Craig (Thomas), are so smart. They had actually planned the ending during our pilot.
"They shot some scenes with the two children - we shot it with them when they were teenagers and now they're in their mid-20s - we shot this whole scene with them.
"It's kind of amazing that it's been nine years and it's come full-circle and they (Bays and Thomas) have been allowed to see their vision through."
But actor Henrie admits it hasn't always been easy to keep the show's ultimate plot under wraps for so long.
He tells Yahoo's The Insider, "I'm 24 now, but when I turned 21 I started going out with my buddies. Everyone was always asking me, 'Dude, who's the mum? Who's the mum?'.
"People would try and bribe me with all sorts of alcohol, but I kept silent. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't even tell my mother."
His secrecy vow paid off - the show, which also starred Alyson Hannigan and Neil Patrick Harris, attracted a series-high ratings explosion with 12.9 million U.S. viewers tuning in to watch the finale.

CBS
A few seconds after the final episode of How I Met Your Mother came to a baffling close and commercials for some travesty starring James Van Der Beek began to roll, my roommate — longtime fan of the show and a fellow to whose slapping wrath I have fallen victim thanks to an ill-conceived bet made two years back — asked if I had “seen that one coming.” I hadn’t.
Sure, I had read the theories. I had discussed them with friends and hostile Internet strangers. I had fostered a few in my recaps — Robin and Barney get divorced? Of course. The Mother dies? They all but told us that was going to happen! Ted and Robin get back together after Robin and Barney get divorced and The Mother dies? … Stranger things! — but something inside of me felt that How I Met Your Mother, for all its mind games and sleight of hand, couldn’t go that far. None of this would ever happen. So, familiar as I was with the possibilities, I was ethereally blindsided by the results of the finale:
Barney and Robin got divorced. The Mother died. Ted and Robin, in the very final moments of the episode — following an hour that spanned 15 years, introduced Ted to professional bassist and blossoming philanthropist Tracy McConnell with whom he'd have two kids and (subsequently) a MacLaren’s wedding, and tossed Lily and Marshall a third child, plus one for a post-divorce Barney — wound up together. Or, at least, Ted hopped back on the prowl for his old flame.
CBS
I didn't know what to think. Had my roommate's subtle affirmation of the episode not been the first opinion I heard thereafter, I might have fallen into the oppositional camp, like the handful of friends with whom I'd then communicate through tweets, texts, Gchats, Facebook group messages — I swear, people only voluntarily contact me following controversial series finales — who all hated it. Truly. Viscerally. Carnally. Although there was diversity in the anti-finale rationale, I noticed a running theme: "This isn't what we were promised."
Somehow, spiting its well-worn practice of duping its viewers — a practice dating back to the pilot, we might add, and spanning through huge series turns like Barney's relationship with Quinn, the death of Marshall's dad, Robin's faux-children — How I Met Your Mother had maintained many a viewer's trust that the story it "promised" it was telling was, in fact, the story it was telling. And to further highlight the peculiarity of this trust, we have to ask: was it ever really the show telling us that we were going to learn how Ted met the mother of his children, or simply Ted himself — a hopeless romantic who we knew from day one saw the world through a particularly thick, idealistic set of rose-colored glasses?
CBS
I can't fault the folks who held fast to this trust. Those who waited years for The Mother, grew attached to Cristin Milioti's bubbly ukulele player, and wanted to see Ted spend the rest of his life with her. My friends called Tracy "perfect" for Ted, and she sure as heck was. In fact, my primary critique of the finale is that I would have liked to see more of their time together over the 10 years between their union and her death. Time spent delighting in one another's company, raising in their kids, experiencing their shared love. Time that would have proved that Ted's refurbished yearning for Robin many years down the line wasn't an invalidation of The Mother, his quest to meet her, or the series that was ostensibly framed in her honor, but in fact just evidence for the simple fact: people love.
People can fall so deeply in love, as Ted did with Robin, and then fall so deeply in love, as Ted did with Tracy... and then fall so deeply in love, as Ted did, again, with Robin. None of it detracts from that which came before, or expels the possibility of that which might come later on. Although Rosses and Rachels galore might have us believe otherwise, those lucky enough to be as wise as Ted's kids (and not as shortsighted as Ted, circa 2005 or 2030) will recognize that a true blue love story isn't... anything in particular.
CBS
That was Ted's mistake when we met him in '05. He had an idea of what love had to be: he saw it in Marshall and Lily, and feared its downfall in the likes of Barney, and hoped it might come to form between he and Robin. And it was Ted's mistake when we met him in '30. He thought that, having spent years devoted to Tracy — his wife, the mother of his children, the bearer of his umbrella — he couldn't possibly love another. Forget that, he convinced himself that he couldn't possibly have ever loved another before. Ted worked hard, despite the earnest truth so clear to viewers and his kinderlacht, to affirm that his years spent cherishing Robin were all just preparation for his meant to be. No woman — especially none that had come before Tracy, and especially one that would remain in his life after her passing — could mean as much to him as she did.
But that doesn't have to be. It's sweet, in its way, and I can't really lament the idea of anyone championing anything that well-intentioned. But it's also sad. Ted, now alone, feels as though he deserves to stay that way, lest he betray the idea that he ever really loved Tracy. But his falling in love with Robin (I hesitate even to say falling back in love, since its a new journey altogether) doesn't make his love for Tracy any less the beauty that it was. For as long as we've known him, we've waited with Ted for his own run at the Lily and Marshall game. The inclusion of, and frequent references to, them as the commercial ideal for love has been an important staple in this show's mission to disrupt the propagation of such. Beside Lily and Marshall, we have Barney. The antithesis of their M.O. in every way, but whose own journeys with love wound up satisfying in no small form: in the finale, Barney found a different type of soul mate, true love, one-and-only: his daughter Ellie, whose addition gave the finale, and Barney's story, a special breath of warmth that I think even the detractors were fond of. She changed him. She filled the part of him that he had long known to be broken. Never in regards to Nora, Quinn, or even Robin have we seen Barney as whole as when he stared into the eyes of his newborn child for the first time and vowed to give her every single piece of himself for as long as he lived.
CBS
Though again, that is singular love. The sort we longtime TV junkies are comfortable with. Not the sort we saw befall Ted in the final moments, when he decided to cap his tale about his adoration for one woman with the decision to profess his adoration for another... something we should have been more prepared for, considering Tracy's own experience with losing her "soul mate," and subsequent decision (if you can even call it that) to pursue love in a refreshingly charming Mosby boy. Hell, even Robin and Barney's short-lived marriage can be tossed into the conversation. Barney affirms, in a fashion that I do not believe was meant for laughs nor as a defense mechanism by the often sardonic Mr. Stinson, that theirs was "a very successful marriage that only lasted three years." Who's to say that such a thing cannot be? Not all relationships are meant to last forever. But they might very well be meant just the same.
Admittedly, there are many imperfections to the ultimate delivery of the tale. As suggested above, we didn't really get to revel in the era of Ted and Tracy, which might well have been just what we needed to feel satisfied that their own story, one of abject importance, was given its due. To reiterate, Tracy was perfect for Ted. Too perfect, maybe. Too exemplary of the very idea of a "perfect match," to the end that her and Ted's relationship — and the "fate" that landed them together — might have undone the ultimate message of the show were we to spend any more time with them, and foster the idea that this sort of love should be championed above the rest. Call me weak, but I still can't help but wish we had seen a little more Mosby-McConnell magic.
CBS
The closing reveal might be used to defend this shortcoming; as this is a story told by a narrator waist-deep in a flourishing love for another woman, how can we expect him to focus so much attention on the wife he lost? Well, as is the entire point that How I Met Your Mother seems bent on making, one does not nullify another. The death of Tracy's lover back in 2005 didn't keep her from falling for Ted. Ted's boundless attempts at winning Robin's heart didn't stop him from loving Tracy. And the passing of Tracy years later wouldn't save Ted from his affections for that gun-lovin', Ghostbusters-quotin', daddy issues-havin' Canadian lass. So, really, we should have seen more of her, at the very least in this final hour. Because the show wants us to believe that Ted did indeed love Tracy, with all his heart. And, now, years later, does indeed love Robin. With all his heart. That's possible. That can happen. That is okay.
So, to all detractors with whom I spoke, I have to concede: in the driving home of this message, How I Met Your Mother did not in fact deliver on its promise. Its promise, straight from the nuclear-powered mouth of a man whose maxims had been drawn from the idealized romance of Hollywood yore, was to give us something of that ilk. Something singular, indelible, incomparable, impossible. No, I'm not saying that "true love" is impossible. I'm saying that it is impossible for all of us to believe we will live out a carbon teleplay of the love that we've all seen in the shows and films that shape the young Teds of the world. That's not how it's going to be. That's not how it has to be. How I Met Your Mother very intentionally broke its promise in order to tell us something important: there is no one kind of true love story.
CBS
A very special thank you to all who stuck with me through the past few years of How I Met Your Mother recaps, to my pal Robbie for lending me his season DVDs (I will give them back someday, I promise), to Mike, Michelle, and Zach for riveting and diplomatic conversation, and to my roommate Matt... who still owes me three slaps.
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CBS
With the biggest mystery of How I Met Your Mother solved, we've taken the past couple of months to move onto new ones: Will Barney and Robin actually get married? Will the Mother die at the end of the series? Will Billy Zabka ever find happiness? And the somewhat overlooked question that we revisit in this week's episode — who did Lily call after that big fight with Marshall?
That last one ties into the larger query of whether or not the Eriksen-Aldrins would be relocating to Italy post-series. Last we left the argument, Lily conceded that the family should stay in the U.S., but this week's turn changed gears for the couple. In a love letter of sorts to How I Met Your Mother fans, Ted dons his sleuth cap to determine who Lily called when she drove off into the night, where she went, and what she did while there. Surprisingly enough, he's pretty close.
In lieu of meeting Robin's mother, Barney high tails his groomsmen (where the hell is his brother, by the way?) to the Captain's Northampton house after Marshall concludes that he must be the one who Lily phoned. That's where the hypothesizing takes place, with Ted drawing elaborate conclusions from minuscule clues to determine the true nature of Lily's secret... well, the false nature (he thought she was hiding the fact that she'd been smoking), but it did lead to the true nature (spoilers!): she's pregnant. This reveal, plus a good swift kick in the ass from his conscience, leads Marshall to decide that the family should in fact move to Italy. And, as far as we learn from a flash forward, they do. All of them — Marshall, Lily, Marvin, Marshall's mom, Lily's dad, and their new baby daughter Daisy.
Beyond just being a moreover fun episode, the aptly named "Daisy" is in a way Carter Bays and Craig Thomas breathing life into the mile-a-minute voices of their longtime fans. How I Met Your Mother audiences are full of theories on every element of the show... something it provokes and abets with its hints, misdirects, call-backs (and -forwards), and various other teases. Even telling us who the Mother is (Cristin Milioti, in case you forgot) didn't appease viewers; we've come up with plenty of other things to wonder about this year alone.
But as we saw with Sunday night's True Detective finale, questions aren't always answered in the way that audiences might want or anticipate. Not everything is about the mystery. So we worry that after nine years, HIMYM might come to a close that leaves viewers feeling incomplete.
Right now, we're obsessing over questions like those above, perhaps at the expense of the emotional (and humorous) core of the show, as was the case with many a True Detective viewer. In the end, that show was bout Rustin Cohle and Marty Hart — two troubled men who needed one another more than they could have anticipated. This show is about plenty in that vein, but we seem to be forgetting that.
We know, we're guilty of this too. But let's not make the same mistake as we might have with True Detective. Let's step away from all these harrowing questions and hold tight to the characters. We might feel duped or misled or underwhelmed by any of the How I Met Your Mother finale's "reveals," but we can bet that Bays and Thomas have something heartfelt and substantial in store for the conclusion of Ted's journey. And hopefully happy! Milioti did say that the death-of-the-Mother theory was "crazy," after all, so there's hope.
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CBS
If you haven't seen this week's How I Met Your Mother episode "Vesuvius," turn back now... the ep, and as such this post, contains what is likely the biggest spoiler in How I Met Your Mother history (which places it somewhere around the area of Kristin shot J.R./The hospital is in a snowglobe/The numbers meant nothing).
A quick summary...
By the time we hit 2030 and meet a long-winded Future Ted recounting his youthful forays to two closed-mouth Mosbiettes, the woman we spent eight years waiting to meet and one season getting to know will be dead. This was all but confirmed outright in this week's episode "Vesuvius," in which the usual framing device shifts to a matted-haired Josh Radnor chatting with Cristin Milioti at the Northampton hotel where they met many years prior.
The reveal — which, we might note, was suggested by series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, who insisted that the series finale would be "heartbreaking" — is peppered gradually throughout the episode, hinted at when The Mother insists that she doesn't want Ted to "live in his stories," and emboldened when Ted breaks into tears over the thought of a mother not being around for her daughter's wedding day. By the end of the episode, it was terrifically clear that Milioti's character would not be long for this world. That Ted spent more time chasing the woman of his dreams than he might end up getting to spend with her.
Reactions took the form of rage, sorrow, and your series-appropriate skepticism. Each side is at once differently valid and uniquely psychotic, and we wouldn't be a complete fan base were not for all components. So here's what sprung from the id-heavy minds of the HIMYM loving (and hate-watching) community last night.
Anger"She's dead?! The mother is dead?!? What the f**k?!?"
Nine seasons spent waiting to finally meet this lady, to watch her yank Ted out of his lifelong melancholy for an ultimately happy and loving life. To institute the idea that true love is not something that makes you feel sick and lonely (re: Ted's feelings for Robin) but whole. We waded through the Scherbatsky-induced misery, holding fast to the idea that one day Ted would meet someone who puts this whole ordeal to shame, who exhibits his relationship with (or, more accurately, "at") Robin for what it is — toxic, immature, and not the best that he can do.
And now, all that has gone to s**t. Mother dies. Ted's alone again, nursing his wounds with meaningless distractions like stories and his children.
But wait, brief hope: does this mean he can end up with Robin? That after the death of Milioti, Ted rekindles things with Ms. Scherbatsky (free of Barney for some inevitable reason) and spends his life with the love that he always knew to be his one and only? ... No, that's dumb and ridiculous. He's probably going to be alone. Or, as foreshadowed by Miloti's own brush with loss, forced to trek out again to find happiness once more.
On the side of this troupe is Alan Sepinwall, all but retired from HIMYM recaps, who felt it necessary to take to the web to pronounce his impassioned distaste for this choice. A great husk of Twitter echoed his sentiments. After investing so much time in a comedy series that, while impressive in its subversion of "traditional love" in the past few weeks still promised a "happy ending," we get this. Nothing shy of betrayal.
Sadness"She's... she's dead? The m-mother is... dead? Oh... my God..."
We hadn't seen this coming, despite warnings from Bays and Thomas. We didn't want to believe it. We wanted Ted to be... happy. This isn't quite what we had expected.
But, in earnest, it's a touch of beauty. It's hurtful, jarring, and mean. But it sure is doing its job: making us well up.
See, it actually kind of makes sense. Ted's whole story is about putting one love behind him to find another. To find someone who can make him happy now, in real life and real time, rather than relying on fantasies and memories... and stories, as Milioti puts it ever so warmly. His quest to overcome Robin is really just a precursor to his quest circa 2030, to overcome the loss of The Mother and again set out to find happiness, and bring this happiness to his children.
It might be tough, but it works. And it's going to drum up some tears... but that's what a good series finale does.
Skepticism"Psh. She's not dead."
We've seen this before, How I Met Your Mother. You make it REALLY OBVIOUS that something is going to happen, and then BAM. The other thing happens. Well, not this time. She ain't dyin'. There's no way you'd be crazy enough to end your CBS comedy series on such a bleak note. Maybe she's sick now, but gets better. Maybe the vague hints at death were in reference to someone else (hey, maybe Robin's dead, or something ... somehow, that doesn't bum us out as much, and we like Robin!). There are plenty of possibilities here. But The Mother dying ain't one of 'em.
So which camp do you lie in?
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Feature film debut, playing a tour guide in genre parody "Not Another Teen Movie"

Made Broadway debut in the stage version of "The Graduate" opposite Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone

Wrote, directed, and starred in romantic comedy "Liberal Arts"

Summary

A personable young actor who bore a strong resemblance to comedian Jimmy Fallon, Josh Radnor played the lovelorn Ted Mosby in the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" (2005- ). The likable, quirky series marked his first lead after a string of guest appearances on television shows and movies, as well as several high profile theatrical gigs.

Education

Name

Kenyon College

New York University

Notes

"While I think I am a pretty nice guy, I have never personally used the term 'The One.' Whenever someone uses that term, I cringe a little. My view of romance is a little more complex than that. I have never been the guy who says, 'Hey let’s have a big relationship.' I tend to tiptoe into them and then I realize, 'Wait, this is pretty great. This is nothing to be scared of.'" – Radnor to People magazine, Sept. 18, 2005